Revert the changes to the aim mechanic

[Garnascus]

Whenever you shoot someone while aiming at them, the aim is Dropped

There is now a cooldown to re-aiming after you shoot, this is currently 3 seconds.

 

These are the changes that are currently live. I played one round as a ninja and i believe i have found a problem with it. I tried to take an engineer hostage and i aimed at him. The engineer did something to cause the aim function to trigger and he was shot. This drops the aim on him and prevents me from aiming at him again for three seconds. Now when a player sees they are no longer being aimed at i feel its common sense to think "OH NO I BETTER TRY TO RUN HE JUST SHOT ME". this forces me to either let them go or keep shooting and kill or crit them. Neither is a very good option when i am intending to take a hostage.

I am not going to pretend it wasnt a bullshit aimbot, it was. At least before this change the aim would stay on them if they messed up and got shot. If the aim is still on them there is a visual indicator that they SHOULD NOT MOVE. I think it needs to be two or three shots before the aim is dropped and then increase the cooldown.

[Skull132]

Could also differentiate between reflexive shooting and user initiated shooting I suppose.

[Scheveningen]

No. It defaults your shooting to manual shooting right after, meaning you can continue to fight if someone moves. Set permissions correctly if you actually intend to take a hostage. Can't fix an error caused by its user.

[Garnascus]

No. It defaults your shooting to manual shooting right after, meaning you can continue to fight if someone moves. Set permissions correctly if you actually intend to take a hostage. Can't fix an error caused by its user.

 

I dont want to continue to fight! i want to take someone hostage! The aim mechanic is intuitive in that it effectively communicates "HEY BUDDY DO NOT MOVE!!" and then i can go from there. Unfortunately it relies on THEM not doing something dumb to trigger being shot. Once they do that they no longer have the aim reticle on them. NOW it becomes a situation of "this guy has shot me and im no longer being aimed at OH SHIT I BETTER RUN"

And then i laser them into crit

and then they spend the rest of the round in dead chat

As much as i like killing people even i think that is shitty. The point is the aim mechanic is so ingrained in our player base that NOT being aimed at is a potential opportunity to GTFO of dodge.

 

Could also differentiate between reflexive shooting and user initiated shooting I suppose.

 

That would probably be fine.

[DatBerry]

I think the best option would be giving the aim mode a button that completely turns off reflex shooting, and when you make a reflex shot, it's toggled off and you have to wait 3 seconds to toggle it back on, this will have the same effect as the current system but keeps the crosshairs on the target

[sonicgotnuked]

Honestly, aim in general is cool and all but so many people abuse it for an auto aim. This should not happen, so it was nerfed.

[sdtwbaj]

Aiming had a good execution before, but as a bullshit aimbot.

To make DatBerry's solution a bit more intuitive, perhaps a 2 or 3 second cooldown between reflex shots with the little dialogue "re-steadies their aim" or something to that effect.

Although the ability to toggle reflex shooting would be nice, to get around some of the aiming bullshit.

[Garnascus]

I think the best option would be giving the aim mode a button that completely turns off reflex shooting, and when you make a reflex shot, it's toggled off and you have to wait 3 seconds to toggle it back on, this will have the same effect as the current system but keeps the crosshairs on the target

 

This would be great too. the crosshairs being visible is important in my opinion.

[incognitojesus]

I think a decent solution would be to just reduce the cooldown? Honestly, three seconds sounds like a lot given how quickly combat and hostage situations go. Or even just make the first few shots after a little more inaccurate. This would negate bullshit autoaim and still allow you to hold people hostage.

[Scheveningen]

I mean, Garn. Ask Skull what he thinks about antagonists taking hostages. He'll tell you the same thing I tend to say: That taking hostages and expecting people to straight up surrender and risk their life 100% is generally pretty stupid. Nobody wants to be at the whims of a single special role that says if they live or die based on their subjective quality gimmick.

People will only agree to be hostages if it suits their own purposes or if they have no other choice. If they have a legitimate choice to run or fight back, they're probably going to pick the one that doesn't 100% of the time get them executed by the antagonist but the one with only a 50% chance unless they're totally boxed in.

The aim intent was nerfed to reduce its power as an aimbot. It is somewhat strong now as a guaranteed first shot mechanic and everything beyond that must be aimed properly. If you want someone to not get shot if they twitch, change your aiming options to not twitch-shot them before you try to take them hostage. I'd rather an antagonist get punished badly for bad accuracy than the same antagonist to be coddled with three free shots because security is guaranteed to abuse the same thing and it's not gonna be fun for anyone involved.

[chaoko99]

also that thing that makes you randomly shoot people you're aimed at needs to piss off and die.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

This change had good intentions but it ignored the actual consequences we knew it would bring.

By removing the aim-bot it gives the person on the other end freedom to use their items without being shot, run away, or do anything else. The problem was the reflexive shooting and aimbot potential, but the consequences are now that my options when trying to aim at someone is severely limited. I can't just emote 'aims my gun at them' when they're running down the hall at/away from me, nor does the single pot shot taken at them incentivize the target to hold still. The only other option is firing with lethal intent

Delta's admitted desire for antagonists to shoot to kill rather than take hostages (because he finds being hostage boring or not fun) is not a development design philosophy we want to follow.

Removing the aim accuracy, or even giving it a minor accuracy DEBUFF to counteract its auto-locking, as well as making all the 'allowed' intents ON to start withwould be an immensely less terrible, complicated, and silly design choice. How it is now is crap.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Marlon Phoenix

[ToasterStrudel]

When I set up aim, I usually get rid of the "Can't move, can't talk on radio, can't etc." Right away, but then that brings up a second issue. Why if I was aiming at someone, would I drop my aim right away, and wait a few seconds, that really doesn't make any sense to me. I feel like reflective firing should be limited to 3 seconds just to nerf someone trying to run a tile away, and the laser rifle suddenly becoming full-auto on its own.

[Scheveningen]

Because shooting someone that moves requires you to re-sight and track the target as any traditional shooter would.

There's no reason to add back the aimbot. There's no reason to add back the features that made it toxic. It was used like a crutch and it was removed because it added nothing but awful gameplay in the way it existed. If you cannot use guns in SS13, now's the time to practice and learn. Use stun measures to pacify someone you want to take hostage if you absolutely want to, because you cannot account for people coming quietly, just like how it works with security. Unlike with security, you only get one chance to tell someone to surrender and if they manage to get away, you're public enemy #1 to the entire station if no other antag has done anything.

I also didn't say whatever JB said but it's expected shitposting at this point.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I mean, Garn. Ask Skull what he thinks about antagonists taking hostages. He'll tell you the same thing I tend to say: That taking hostages and expecting people to straight up surrender and risk their life 100% is generally pretty stupid. Nobody wants to be at the whims of a single special role that says if they live or die based on their subjective quality gimmick.

 

i dont know what this says if not you actively wanting antagonists to be unable to take hostages...... you are really defensive; I dont know why you call a counter-argument shitposting. that is an immature way to respond.

Removing the aim accuracy, or even giving it a minor accuracy DEBUFF to counteract its auto-locking, as well as having all intents be allowed would be an immensely less terrible, complicated, and silly design choice. How it is now is crap. It is a mechanical indication that you are being aimed at, which is required to get someone's attention more-so than emoting, since it comes with its own effects upon activation.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Marlon Phoenix

[alexpkeaton]

My understanding is that the old aim was something of an "auto-win" for the person holding the gun. Normally, I'm against features that auto-win. For example, on Paradise, the stunbaton knocks down a person when used. Every time - it was an auto-win for sec. On Aurora, it severely weakens someone. Same with the taser. I prefer Aurora's mechanic, but I got robusted early on not realising the mechanic was different.

However, I know that the staff are very insistent upon being aware of when you are outgunned, overwhelmed or otherwise dominated. A lot of this depends on RPing situations where you are outgunned correctly, but having mechanics that play into that notion would also be helpful. I get why auto-aim was nerfed, but I think that there should be mechanics that reinforce that if these situations were real life, you wouldn't be charging at your captor with bare hands when they have full armor and a machine gun. However, that is exactly what happens and we shouldn't be rewarding someone who can spam-click faster or aim better. I would expect someone to hit me nine times out of 10 or maybe even 10 times out of 10 if I was stopped and they aimed a gun at me from 5 feet away and told me not to move. That's not unrealistic.

I also believe that taking hostages are a good way to add some fun RP to a round without forcing someone into dchat for a half hour.

+1 for restoring the mechanic.

[Garnascus]

Lets all just appreciate for a moment i am arguing for a change that will make me kill LESS people. I want people to sit still like any reasonable and unarmed person would when i aim a fucking gun at them.

 

This change had good intentions but it ignored the actual consequences we knew it would bring.

By removing the aim-bot it gives the person on the other end freedom to use their items without being shot, run away, or do anything else. The problem was the reflexive shooting and aimbot potential, but the consequences are now that my options when trying to aim at someone is severely limited. I can't just emote 'aims my gun at them' when they're running down the hall at/away from me, nor does the single pot shot taken at them incentivize the target to hold still. The only other option is firing with lethal intent

Delta's admitted desire for antagonists to shoot to kill rather than take hostages (because he finds being hostage boring or not fun) is not a development design philosophy we want to follow.

Removing the aim accuracy, or even giving it a minor accuracy DEBUFF to counteract its auto-locking, as well as making all the 'allowed' intents ON to start withwould be an immensely less terrible, complicated, and silly design choice. How it is now is crap.

 

Holy shit. this.

I do not necessarily want the mechanic brought back as it was. i am fine with a tweak or a compromise and there have been PLENTY of good suggestions in this thread.

 

I mean, Garn. Ask Skull what he thinks about antagonists taking hostages. He'll tell you the same thing I tend to say: That taking hostages and expecting people to straight up surrender and risk their life 100% is generally pretty stupid. Nobody wants to be at the whims of a single special role that says if they live or die based on their subjective quality gimmick.

 

.,,,u wot m9?

You're god damn right i expect people to surrender. Security or armed individuals are an exception. I absolutely expect an engineer to do what the fuck i say because if he doesn't he WILL die.

[ben10083]

I mean, Garn. Ask Skull what he thinks about antagonists taking hostages. He'll tell you the same thing I tend to say: That taking hostages and expecting people to straight up surrender and risk their life 100% is generally pretty stupid. Nobody wants to be at the whims of a single special role that says if they live or die based on their subjective quality gimmick.

 

.,,,u wot m9?

You're god damn right i expect people to surrender. Security or armed individuals are an exception. I absolutely expect an engineer to do what the fuck i say because if he doesn't he WILL die.

 

You risk your life WAY more if you try to escape, its not like they will make you surrender than immediately kill you and spam *snap while they say "get rekt boi" in LOOC... The point of hostage is that it deters security from rushing in.

[Scheveningen]

its not like they will make you surrender than immediately kill you

 

antags do this all of the time, are you serious?

[ben10083]

its not like they will make you surrender than immediately kill you

 

antags do this all of the time, are you serious?

 

They usually do it because the person immediately screams on radio "HELP I AM BEING KIDNAPPED BY [NAME]" and that triggers aim

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

90% of the time I've shot someone on hostage intent is because they do something to trigger reflex aiming. The other 10% is me wanting to make them pause long enough to get my cool one-liner out.

[Pacmandevil]

minor accuracy DEBUFF to counteract its auto-locking

 

so a minor "band aid fix" - which uses another bad, and pretty meme-worthy feature of RnG bullet fixes, for the MAJOR advantage of an aimbot?

I'd support making aim simply just apply the aiming overlay element, but by no means should any form of auto-aim exist in this game. it's a toxic feature, and was often abused, requiring literally no mechanical skill.

I still hold the opinion that if you want to take a hostage, you have a million tools available to you, without expecting players to not act dumb.

The old Aiming "feature" had the following issues.

[*]Misuse

- People liked to pretend that it was an instant "free hostage" button, when they clicked someone who was walking through maint, resulting in the instantly getting shot, and someone hearing the shot and calling sec. - notice how most successful hostage situations during this time were either when someone was massively outmatched and WASNT ambushed, like some Merc team holed up near arrivials. (Though I only remember a situation like this post newmap, Ironically after the nerf)

This could in theory be solved by returning the second shot free - by the time of which they would have hopefully stopped instead of finding cover or walking 7m away, but that leads to the second one.

[*]Abuse

- Self Explanatory. people abused it for it's cheap, free auto-aim as a consistent and easy way to win fights. this felt cheap, and unfair to fight against, as I can't think of a consistent way to REMOVE the aim. which led to a toxic feature. Features, when added. should consider the lowest tier of player that Isn't griff. people USING - as this wasn't abuse. of a game mechanic to win gunfights was poorly thought out.

[*]Restrictions and poor default settings.

As stated earlier, the default settings almost always resulted in someone instantly getting shot, and felt shit. especially because they would walk like 5 steps before even noticing someone aimed at them, resulting with someone at best being stunned, and at worst dead on the ground with internal bleeding, but hey death is cheap so that doesn't matter.

This could in theory be solved by changing the defaults, or making it prefs based, but then people would just walk out of range. it's spessmens, you only see 7 meters in front of you.

[*]A mechanic balanced around RP

this is never going to work. it'd be like giving psych an insta fix brain damage tool but saying that you can only use it after doing a psych session with someone. and despite this breaking all known laws of physics by giving the psych an actual use, it'd be a horrible, abused feature that renders brain damage useless (despite it being pretty much that already)

but hey, it has RP intentions, thus it's fine, right?

My suggestion for the people who want to take hostages would be to use the literal thousands of ways to disable someone to disable them, instead of relying on an abused, dead horse that should be buried. I'd be all for the addition of more ways to disable comms - which is one of the main issues, or at least mute people. The para/sleepy pens are great for this, especially with some of the things you can get with TC, in a pinch, as say: a cult, or revs. you can get autoinjectors or the hypospray.

Or a radar jammer and a stunprod. or the meme hug stun instead of a magic circle that forces people to stop everything.

[sdtwbaj]

one thing that tg servers with aim mechanics have is a 2 or 3 second cooldown between initial aim and autofiring for anything, so you could aim at a moving target and wouldn't instantly open fire, a little 'grace period' of sorts.

we could do that, just a sidenote.

[Pacmandevil]

That would just give two-three seconds to book it.

[Scheveningen]

Like pacman mentioned before, sdt, it would just be a bandaid fix to a very broken part of the system. You can't fix a broken glass, you sweep it up and then you toss it.

There are more fundamental balance issues with it being abused as an aimbot in addition to a "free hostage" button. Hostage taking should not be that easy, and it shouldn't also give you a massive headstart benefit in a fight that also lasts throughout the fight unless the individual manages to break line of sight. Given the presence of hitscan weapons and bullets generally having higher speed than people, and the fact that projectile weapons track super hard on people directly shot at, it isn't worth the risk of returning to its original state. It was toxic game mechanics, there are other means to subdue people in order to restrain them and then use as leverage. Antagonists will have to fallback to those methods for once and get practiced.